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A catastrophic rockslide-debris flow in Wulong, Chongqing, China in 2009: background, characterization, and causes

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Abstract

On June 5, 2009, a catastrophic rockslide-debris flow occurred at the crest of the Jiweishan Mountain in Wulong, Chongqing, China. Approximately five million cubic meters of limestone blocks slid along a weak interlayer of bituminous and carbonaceous shale. The source mass descended from the upper part of the slope rapidly, crossing a 200-m wide and 50-m deep creek in front of it. Blocked by the opposite steep creek wall, the sliding mass changed its direction and traveled a further 2.2 km along the creek in debris-flow mode, finally forming a large accumulation zone with an average depth of 30 m. This is one of the most catastrophic rockslide events in recent years in China. It buried 12 houses and the entrance of an iron mining tunnel where some 27 miners were working inside. Ten people died, 64 missing, and eight wounded. Immediately after this disaster happened, the government organized an expert team to assist the rescue work. As one of the geological experts, the author did a lot of field investigations and collected first-hand information. Multi-methods including the remote sensing, 3D laser scanning, geophysical exploration, and numerical modeling were used for analyzing the characteristics and the triggering mechanism of the Wulong rockslide. The preliminary investigation results reveal that this rockslide with poor geological conditions was mainly induced by the gravitation and the karst effect and also affected by the previous mining activities. The research in this paper is meaningful and useful for further research on such kind of rockslides that are geologically similar to the Wulong rockslide.

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Acknowledgements

This research is financially supported by the National Basic Research Program “973” Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (2008CB425801) as well as the Creative Team Program of the Ministry of Education in China. The authors acknowledge the contributions from every member of the expert team from the Ministry of Land and Resources P.R.C. and the State Administration of Work Safety. We acknowledge all the geologists from local geological institutes who assisted in the field investigation. We appreciate the great supports in field work and data collecting from the leaders of Chongqing government, the Ministry of Land and Resources P.R.C, the China Geological Survey, and other related departments. Last but not least, we would like to give our special thanks to Min Wang, Fengjun Guan and Yuan Liu for their great supports to the expert team.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geo-hazard Prevention and Geo-environment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Sichuan, 610059, China

    Qiang Xu, Xuanmei Fan, Runqiu Huang, Xiujun Dong & Minggao Tang

  2. International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands

    Xuanmei Fan

  3. China Geological Survey, Beijing, 100037, China

    Yueping Yin

  4. China Institute of Geo-Environment Monitoring, Beijing, 100037, China

    Shengshan Hou

Authors
  1. Qiang Xu
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  2. Xuanmei Fan
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  3. Runqiu Huang
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  4. Yueping Yin
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  5. Shengshan Hou
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  6. Xiujun Dong
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  7. Minggao Tang
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Correspondence to Qiang Xu.

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Xu, Q., Fan, X., Huang, R. et al. A catastrophic rockslide-debris flow in Wulong, Chongqing, China in 2009: background, characterization, and causes. Landslides 7, 75–87 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-009-0179-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-009-0179-y

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